Federal prosecutors in Kansas City have charged Trung Nguyen Van, 37, a Vietnamese national, with laundering money from pig-butchering scams. The complaint says his cryptocurrency wallets took in about $53.3 million from fraud schemes aimed at Americans between February 2018 and December 2024 and sent nearly all of it onward. One victim alone is alleged to have moved about $16 million into a fake investment platform. The charges are accusations, and Van has not been tried, but the numbers show how much money one set of wallets can pass along for scammers.
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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri announced the case on September 25, 2026. The two-count money laundering complaint was unsealed after Van made his first appearance in federal court in Los Angeles. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey Q. McCarther and James Kirkpatrick are handling the prosecution, and the FBI investigated. The office says plainly that the charges in a complaint are not evidence of guilt, and that prosecutors must still prove them to a federal trial jury.
How a pig-butchering scam finds its victims
U.S. Attorney R. Matthew Price called pig-butchering schemes “an increasingly prevalent and sophisticated form of fraud.” According to the Justice Department’s announcement, they usually begin with a fictitious romantic relationship, often started on a dating site or through an unsolicited message by social media, text or a messaging app. The victim is steered toward a fake cryptocurrency project, shown inflated early gains, and pushed to put in larger and larger sums. People who get unexpected friendly messages from strangers are the ones this pattern is built for.
The Federal Trade Commission describes the same opening move in its warnings about romance scams: scammers set up fake profiles on dating apps or reach out on social media, move the chat to a private channel quickly, and may offer to help the new friend start investing in cryptocurrency. The first contact needs a name and a phone number or an account to message. The complaint does not say how Van’s victims were first found, but personal details on data broker and people-search sites are one place such contacts can start, and Incogni sends removal requests to those brokers and keeps re-sending them.
The scale of the losses explains why prosecutors keep bringing these cases. In its 2024 annual report, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 41,557 cryptocurrency investment fraud complaints and $5.8 billion in losses. Victims over 60 reported $1.6 billion in investment fraud losses that year, spread over 8,043 complaints. Those totals cover far more than this one case.
Where the $16 million went
The complaint tells the story of one victim in detail. Between June and August 2024, the victim sent about $16 million in cryptocurrency, believing it was an investment in a platform called “Triangle.” The victim is not named. Prosecutors say this is the one transfer chain they traced directly into Van’s wallet, and other victims’ money reached it by a longer route.
The tracing is specific. Prosecutors allege that on August 9, 2024, Van’s wallet received six transfers totaling about $569,569 that trace back to the victim, and a transfer of over $569,000 on August 7 is also described as directly traceable to his wallet. Immediately afterward, Van is accused of moving about $567,999 in four transactions to a private, un-hosted wallet outside the centralized exchange system, which leaves about $1,570 of that sum unaccounted for in the complaint’s account.
Across the whole period, the complaint says Van’s wallets received about $53,275,939 from wire fraud schemes that targeted U.S. citizens and sent about $53,188,466 to other accounts off the centralized network. The gap between the two totals is about $87,000. A wallet that takes in $53.3 million and passes on $53.2 million is acting as a pipe, not a savings account, which is why the charge is laundering rather than the scam itself.
The release adds that numerous other U.S.-based victims reported combined losses in the millions. Their money went first to several suspicious wallets, which then sent funds on to Van’s wallet. Each of those victims was directed to invest through websites, could not withdraw their money, and later learned they had been defrauded.
What is still unproven
Prosecutors have not published the statutes behind the two counts, a trial date or a plea. A complaint is a charging document filed by prosecutors, and the case is at its start. The release describes Van as a Vietnamese national but does not say whether he lives in the United States or how he came to be in Los Angeles. Nothing in it says any of the money has been recovered or returned to victims.
The FBI’s Kansas City Field Office, led by Special Agent in Charge Chris Ormerod, said the bureau “uncovered and disrupted this alleged scheme” with law enforcement and private-sector partners in multiple jurisdictions. Whether the other wallets in the chain are tied to additional defendants has not been announced. The $53.3 million figure is what moved through the wallets, not an amount any court has found was stolen or an amount victims will get back.
Reporting a crypto investment scam
Anyone who has sent cryptocurrency to a person met online can report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. The FTC advises that people who paid by cryptocurrency, gift card, wire transfer or card should contact the company or bank right away and ask for a refund, and should tell the dating or social site where the contact began.
The Western District of Missouri says victims of crimes it prosecutes can reach its office at (816) 426-3122 or use the Justice Department’s victim help pages. The trail in this case ran through wallets and websites that victims were told to use, so screenshots of chats, wallet addresses and transaction records are what investigators look for when a report is made.
The FBI’s 2024 figures show how large the losses from this kind of fraud have become. The complaint against Van will test, in a federal courtroom, whether one set of wallets knowingly moved that money, and prosecutors have yet to say what they will file next.
Where pig-butchering scammers get their leads
The scam in this case started with an unsolicited message, and the victim who sent about $16 million never had a say in who made contact. Less personal data on broker lists can mean fewer scam calls, texts and emails, and Incogni asks data brokers and people-search sites to remove personal information, sends the requests on a customer’s behalf and keeps re-sending them. Incogni also shows the status of each request in the customer’s account.
Have Incogni send the data broker removal requests for you →
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Money Overview’s editorial team.
